Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics: Modular baseline health surveys

• Published in: Environmental impact assessment review Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 15 - 22
• Main Authors: Winkler, Mirko S., Divall, Mark J., Krieger, Gary R., Schmidlin, Sandro, Magassouba, Mohamed L., Knoblauch, Astrid M., Singer, Burton H., Utzinger, Jürg
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.02.2012
• Subjects: Baseline health survey; DEVELOPING COUNTRIES; Developing country; Ecological analysis; Environment; ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Epidemiology; GUINEA; Health impact assessment; Industrial development project; INDUSTRY; Key performance indicators; MINING; PUBLIC HEALTH; Republic of Guinea; Socioeconomic status; Surveys; Tropical zones; Guinea; Health impact assessment; Industrial development project; Republic of Guinea; Key performance indicators; Baseline health survey; Developing country
• ISSN: 0195-9255; 1873-6432
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eiar.2011.10.003

The quantitative assessment of health impacts has been identified as a crucial feature for realising the full potential of health impact assessment (HIA). In settings where demographic and health data are notoriously scarce, but there is a broad range of ascertainable ecological, environmental, epidemiological and socioeconomic information, a diverse toolkit of data collection strategies becomes relevant for the mainly small-area impacts of interest. We present a modular, cross-sectional baseline health survey study design, which has been developed for HIA of industrial development projects in the humid tropics. The modular nature of our toolkit allows our methodology to be readily adapted to the prevailing eco-epidemiological characteristics of a given project setting. Central to our design is a broad set of key performance indicators, covering a multiplicity of health outcomes and determinants at different levels and scales. We present experience and key findings from our modular baseline health survey methodology employed in 14 selected sentinel sites within an iron ore mining project in the Republic of Guinea. We argue that our methodology is a generic example of rapid evidence assembly in difficult-to-reach localities, where improvement of the predictive validity of the assessment and establishment of a benchmark for longitudinal monitoring of project impacts and mitigation efforts is needed.